How soldiers deal with the job of killing

[jcustis]

The reference (here) was to the common denominator being that they (fighter aces) got into more fights when they were kids relative to the other pilots. Which gets us to "minor psychopaths" (or "minor sociopaths", whatever).

It strikes me (talking just about kids) that "minor psychopaths" are not all the same qualitatively. Let's take the "bully" first; but I'd put him on the shelf real quick because he won't take on anyone he thinks is equal or stronger. He'd make a lousy soldier (IMO), but he's one kind of "minor psychopath".

Then, there's the "defensive" kind who won't fight unless provoked - perhaps by a bully type, but also by one of the two "offensive" kinds of "minor psychopaths".

One of those is the kind who pushes other "minor psychopaths" who are within his capabilities just for the sake of seeing who comes out on top.

The other of those two is the kind who also pushes other "minor psychopaths" and doesn't care how far beyond his capabilities they are. A little nutsy that kind (but some booze also helped).

Those are my observations based on "minor psychopathic" kids I grew up with who saw a bit of violence as being a normal part of life.

Actually, the only kind I regard as being a "minor psychopath" is the bully. The others are simply your normal kids who won't take $hit. "Normal" for the Copper Country, but Carl can be a reality check on that.

And, covering Dropkick Murphys, while we sure weren't Vegan and definitely not Swedish, we were a bunch of sensitive guys - no need for us to take sensitivity training - honest.

Your thoughts ?

Regards

Mike

I love this clip:

http://youtu.be/isfn4OxCPQs

[ganulv]

So far our focus is focused on Anglophone soldiers that generally hail from similiar cultures. After a few hours of reading today about Japanese soldiers during the early days of WWII it is clear that they not only didn't hesitate to kill, but relished in torturing innocents and participating in mass rape long after the excitement of any combat. The German SS were also capable of visiting exceptional cruelity, as a number of others throughout history. As Anglophones we do surprisingly well at killing considering the values accepted as norms in our society, but there are others in the world who seem to be completely unhindered by what we would consider moral norms.

What enabled the Germans and especially the Japanese to participate in mass murder and torture? Their culture? Lower level of social development? Superior social development? Is it undefinable? When did we become relatively moral compared to our enemies? Was there a turning point in history?

I know less about the Japanese case than the German. The standard published point of departure is John Dower’s War without mercy. There certainly did seem to be some important differences—I’ll call them cultural and/or social, though some would haggle over whether either is the appropriate term—between the Japanese and U.S. troops. To put it roughly, I think it fair to say that by and large the Japanese saw Americans’ willingness to surrender and Americans saw Japanese willingness to engage in banzai charges and kamikaze attacks (a favorite scholar of mine, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, has published one book and a collection of edited primary documents related to the latter; here’s an article stemming from her work on them) as things done by animals.

As for the SS and particularly the Einsatzgruppen, they were fighting international Bolshevism. There were other things in the mix beyond a hatred and fear of Marxism (Omer Bartov’s work is once place to look) but the perpetrators saw themselves as enmeshed in an existential conflict. That may completely implausible motivation seven decades on, but I suspect future generations are going to have a hard time buying contemporary motivations for the Global War on Terror (before anyone suggests otherwise, I am not equating the Holocaust and the Global War on Terror), as well.

American troops have never perpetrated anything of the scale that Japanese and German forces did during World War Two. But I don’t think any American should kid themselves about some sort of inherent American decency. The Philippine-American War is an example too often overlooked in our country’s military history. During World War Two American soldiers and Marines are well known to have collected Japanese skulls as trophies (I understand perfectly well how the conditions they were under could have lead them to find that to be acceptable behavior, I’m just pointing out that being American didn’t stop them from being capable of it). And we can be quite inhumane to our own. Look at our country’s history of lynchings and the fact that something like 1% of our adults are imprisoned on any given day and 600 or so of them are sexually assaulted on that day and the public at large doesn’t really seem too concerned about it.

[jmm99]

My computer network isn't set up for Internet video. Yeah, I know, three months of real retired time - and still no CAT-5 run in the basement. That's not even a good reason.

However, I get the general drift from the comments. Yes, there is satisfaction from confronting the bully - esp. if he is a couple of years older and ends up bawling and wetting his pants. Violence can be used for good and for bad ends.

Regards

Mike

[jcustis]

Mike,

It's the video of the Australian gentle giant kid (and older at 16), pile-driving the younger (at 12) kid who is clearly the aggressor in the video. Both had their own separate interviews afterwards, and to hear the 12-yr old punk tell it, he's an angel who was "abused" first.

[tequila]

One point that comes out in George Feifer's excellent work on the Battle of Okinawa - Tennozan - is that IJA basic training emphasized systematic physical abuse of its recruits to instill hardiness and obedience. Beatings were brutal and routine, being inflicted by both NCOs and officers for the smallest infraction.

Edward J. Drea's Japan's Imperial Army emphasizes that this sort of training was seen by the officer corps as required to mold peasant recruits into the sort of disciplined soldiers capable of defeating samurai rebels in the civil wars of the Meiji era. Reading Drea is instructive as to differences in the behavior of Japanese troops in wars leading up to WWII - Japanese treatment of civilians and POWs was exemplary during the Boxer Rebellion (where Japanese forces avoided massacres of civilians, unlike British, French, German, and Russian troops), and also during the Russo-Japanese war (despite gruesome casualties inflicted on them by Russian forces in fixed defenses).

However the IJA's behavior during its conquest and 'pacification' of Korea and Manchuria was markedly different, more reminiscent of European behavior in Africa and Asia on a larger scale (punitive expeditions, decimation, etc.).

[jmm99]

kind of an odd matchup - that Aussie one.

My bully was more traditional - 8th grader; I was in 5th. But, I'd gone back to school the year before in 4th (a year behind my age group), after 4 years in a body cast. So, our age difference was a couple of years. He was larger than I, but "soft". The only way you get around in a body cast is to use your arms - hundreds of "push ups" and dozens of "pull ups" per day, in effect.

As it turned out, I had a couple of other advantages. My left hip and right wrist had been fused because of the bone-eating bacteria - the fused hip turned out to be a natural for a hip throw; the fused wrist turned my right arm into a pretty good club (you can't break your hand cuz it's solid bone ).

Anyway this knucklehead (upon whom someone had wasted a good a$$hole by putting teeth in it) had a penchant for bullying 5th graders. One day he went after me - hit on the 5th grade cripple for some sport, I suppose. He shoved. I got him in a headlock; grounded him in a choke hold and pounded him a couple of dozen times in the face.

The net result was that thereafter he avoided me - and also my classmates. A moment of clarity some 58 years ago, which I still relish.

Regards

Mike

[carl]

kind of an odd matchup - that Aussie one.

That that kind of matchup existed indicates the hell that fat kid must have been going through. In one of the interviews with the body slammer he said this has been going on for years and I believe he said that he was the target of many. Getting picked on by somebody so much younger, smaller and weaker further indicates that there was a whole group tormenting that kid. The body slammee would not have gone through with such a mismatch if he didn't think he had a lot of backup.

[Firn]

That that kind of matchup existed indicates the hell that fat kid must have been going through. In one of the interviews with the body slammer he said this has been going on for years and I believe he said that he was the target of many. Getting picked on by somebody so much younger, smaller and weaker further indicates that there was a whole group tormenting that kid. The body slammee would not have gone through with such a mismatch if he didn't think he had a lot of backup.

It seems that way from the video. I think it was another cruel twist in a long and sad story - just look how the other persons react in that video.

I think that in general we humans are very good at coming up with arguments to support our reactions and the one of the group. Some of them hold water, others not so much, some are rather objective others rely on perceptions and some apply just for 'our' good side and not for the bad others.

(From Wikipeda, on the 'Indian mutiny')

In terms of sheer numbers, the casualties were much higher on the Indian side. A letter published after the fall of Delhi in the "Bombay Telegraph" and reproduced in the British press testified to the scale of the Indian casualties:

.... All the city's people found within the walls of the city of Delhi when our troops entered were bayoneted on the spot, and the number was considerable, as you may suppose, when I tell you that in some houses forty and fifty people were hiding. These were not mutineers but residents of the city, who trusted to our well-known mild rule for pardon. I am glad to say they were disappointed.[117]

Edward Vibart, a 19-year-old officer, recorded his experience:

It was literally murder... I have seen many bloody and awful sights lately but such a one as I witnessed yesterday I pray I never see again. The women were all spared but their screams on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most painful... Heaven knows I feel no pity, but when some old grey bearded man is brought and shot before your very eyes, hard must be that man's heart I think who can look on with indifference...

Being 'soft' against the enemy has been of course in general seen as a bigger weakness then being hard and tough. You don't want to be the weak guy and you want a brother in arm which is aggressive on the battlefield against the enemy.

Note that in the first case civilians among them women were killed, while in the second 'only' male civilians were murdered, showing that it depended also on the circumstances, the unit and the leadership. Revenge seemed to have been a strong motivator. The first is glad that they did not give any quarter, while the second says he feels no pity, but that some of the killings were hard on him.

Such actions seem to have partly justified by such reports, similar to the one, horrific murder, posted earlier by JMA.

The incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against European women and girls appalled the British public. These atrocities were often used to justify the British reaction to the rebellion. British newspapers printed various eyewitness accounts of the rape of English women and girls. One such account published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10 had been raped by Indian rebels in Delhi. Karl Marx later claimed that this was propaganda stating that the account was written by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion, though he produced no evidence to support this.[121]

Even when I today read the stories I feel the emotions.

[JMA]

Even when I today read the stories I feel the emotions.

That was 1857. Things were a little different for the Brits then.

But then fast forward to the 1980s and zimbabwe to the Gukurahundi genocide.

That great African liberator and darling of the political left Robert Mugabe committed a genocide in zimbabwe where men, women and children were massacred amongst the Ndebele people of that country. (20,000 confirmed but likely to have been much more.)

Not too much was heard out of North American and European universities over this of course.

Some light at the end of the tunnel though...Gukurahundi perpetrators face prosecution

Is it going to happen? Nah... no oil in zimbabwe you see and no balls in the West to address this genocide.

[ganulv]

That great African liberator and darling of the political left Robert Mugabe committed a genocide in zimbabwe where men, women and children were massacred amongst the Ndebele people of that country. (20,000 confirmed but likely to have been much more.)

Not too much was heard out of North American and European universities over this of course.

Some light at the end of the tunnel though...Gukurahundi perpetrators face prosecution

Is it going to happen? Nah... no oil in zimbabwe you see and no balls in the West to address this genocide.

On the other hand, in Central America one of the real bastards of recent history is having some of his dirty laundry aired for the world to see—his countrymen are well aware of who he is and what he’s done—before his time on earth is done.

[JMA]

On the other hand, in Central America one of the real bastards of recent history is having some of his dirty laundry aired for the world to see—his countrymen are well aware of who he is and what he’s done—before his time on earth is done.

They should nail him too, no question.

[ganulv]

They should nail him too, no question.

I would put decent money down that within a couple of weeks Efraín is going to be diagnosed with that incapacitating disease that former strongmen tend to suffer from after the indictment is read.

[JMA]

I would put decent money down that within a couple of weeks Efran is going to be diagnosed with that incapacitating disease that former strongmen tend to suffer from after the indictment is read.

Doesn't matter whether its a left wing thug or a right wing right thug they must all go down.

[Sigaba]

I know less about the Japanese case than the German. The standard published point of departure is John Dower’s War without mercy.

While I was and remain impressed with Dower's work, I also agree with John Shy's assessment that:

the actual links between thought and action are more often assumed in [Dower's] book than explored.

Citation from: John Shy, "The Cultural Approach to the History of War," Proceedings of the Symposium on "The History of War as Part of General History", 12-13 March 1993, The Journal of Military History, 57:5 (special issue) (October 1993): 15. Shy recommends the book that was published after his presentation Craig Cameron, American Samurai: Myth and Imagination in the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division 1941-1951 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). I have not yet gotten around to reading this book--which I may or may not own.

There certainly did seem to be some important differences—I’ll call them cultural and/or social, though some would haggle over whether either is the appropriate term—between the Japanese and U.S. troops.

With respect, I think you're taking lightly the debate that has caused an extraordinary degree of intellectual, political, and personal conflict among professional academic historians over the past two decades. While some historians are comfortable with a formulation in which the relationship between the 'base' and the 'superstructure' is much more dynamic than initially thought, American social and cultural historians are still slugging it out--to the unending sorrow of those who don't have tenure, to say nothing of a tenure-track job, in the Ivory Tower.

As for the SS and particularly the Einsatzgruppen, they were fighting international Bolshevism. There were other things in the mix beyond a hatred and fear of Marxism (Omer Bartov’s work is once place to look) but the perpetrators saw themselves as enmeshed in an existential conflict. That may completely implausible motivation seven decades on, but I suspect future generations are going to have a hard time buying contemporary motivations for the Global War on Terror (before anyone suggests otherwise, I am not equating the Holocaust and the Global War on Terror), as well.

IMO, the historiographical debate is much more nuanced than you present in this summary. Yes, the Nazis viewed the conflict with Bolshevism as existential. However, this mortal struggle contained a racial component that was unrecoverable. Moreover, a number of historians including Peter Fritzsche, Peter Longerich, Wolfram Wette, Alan E. Steinweis, and Stephen G. Fritz (who has sparred with Bartov over an unfavorable review) have provided compelling arguments that rank and file Germans (both civilians and soldiers) had a higher level of 'buy in' to this component of Nazi ideology than previously thought.

American troops have never perpetrated anything of the scale that Japanese and German forces did during World War Two. But I don’t think any American should kid themselves about some sort of inherent American decency. The Philippine-American War is an example too often overlooked in our country’s military history. During World War Two American soldiers and Marines are well known to have collected Japanese skulls as trophies (I understand perfectly well how the conditions they were under could have lead them to find that to be acceptable behavior, I’m just pointing out that being American didn’t stop them from being capable of it). And we can be quite inhumane to our own. Look at our country’s history of lynchings and the fact that something like 1% of our adults are imprisoned on any given day and 600 or so of them are sexually assaulted on that day and the public at large doesn’t really seem too concerned about it.

Here, you present an interesting linkage between the American soldier (broadly conceived) and his/her former life as a civilian. If your interpretation is correct, what does it say of the efficacy of the training and indoctrination of American servicemen? Are they provided the technical expertise to kill while relying more on their social and cultural upbringing rather than the ethos of professional soldiers? If such is the case, can the "warrior spirit" be learned (much less taught)? Or, as many of the QPs at PS.COM aver, are warriors born and not made--and thus individual differences trump social and cultural backgrounds?

[ganulv]

With respect, I think you're taking lightly the debate that has caused an extraordinary degree of intellectual, political, and personal conflict among professional academic historians over the past two decades. While some historians are comfortable with a formulation in which the relationship between the 'base' and the 'superstructure' is much more dynamic than initially thought, American social and cultural historians are still slugging it out--to the unending sorrow of those who don't have tenure, to say nothing of a tenure-track job, in the Ivory Tower.
IMO, the historiographical debate is much more nuanced than you present in this summary. Yes, the Nazis viewed the conflict with Bolshevism as existential. However, this mortal struggle contained a racial component that was unrecoverable. Moreover, a number of historians including Peter Fritzsche, Peter Longerich, Wolfram Wette, Alan E. Steinweis, and Stephen G. Fritz (who has sparred with Bartov over an unfavorable review) have provided compelling arguments that rank and file Germans (both civilians and soldiers) had a higher level of 'buy in' to this component of Nazi ideology than previously thought.

The tenure process keeps a lot of debates alive. Publish–or–perish, even if everyone on the tenure committee knows its a make–work publication. (While on an above department level tenure review committee my advisor went to the mat for a guy who had edited a collection of primary documents which no one else on the committee wanted to count toward his publication record. My advisor asked them which would count more in a couple of decades, a couple of deprecated journal articles or easy access to what would have otherwise been practically inaccessible documents? “They never thought of it that way.” Sigh.)

As for ideological buy–in, for me its as much a question of method as anything. I am dubious we can really get into a person’s head when we are sitting in the room with him or her, much less decades on. Others disagree, of course.

Here, you present an interesting linkage between the American soldier (broadly conceived) and his/her former life as a civilian. If your interpretation is correct, what does it say of the efficacy of the training and indoctrination of American servicemen? Are they provided the technical expertise to kill while relying more on their social and cultural upbringing rather than the ethos of professional soldiers? If such is the case, can the "warrior spirit" be learned (much less taught)? Or, as many of the QPs at PS.COM aver, are warriors born and not made--and thus individual differences trump social and cultural backgrounds?

That wasn’t really my intent. I was implying that Westerners often like to pat themselves on the back about their relative degree of civilization (civilizedness?) and suggest that they really shouldn’t.

[JMA]

In Chapter 2 he states:

The ideal response to killing in war should be one similar to a mercy killing, sadness mingled with respect.

The ideal response?

Not sure about that.

What feelings should I (or the gunship crew) have when I see a video on Youtube where a gunship kills some Afghans in the process of laying an IED?

All killing is not equal.

Is killing an enemy in war the same as that of a drive-by shooting? The killings perpetrated by a deranged serial killer?

So if soldiers select another word for killing -destroy/annihilate/dispatch/eradicate/erase/neutralize/obliterate/slay/waste/wipe out/zap - it has more to do with differentiating the act of killing which they get involved on with that of criminal murderers than mask their own actions. Of course much of the motivation behind the replacement words chosen for killing has no subliminal psychological basis at all.

[motorfirebox]

In Chapter 2 he states:



The ideal response?

Not sure about that.

What feelings should I (or the gunship crew) have when I see a video on Youtube where a gunship kills some Afghans in the process of laying an IED?

All killing is not equal.

Is killing an enemy in war the same as that of a drive-by shooting? The killings perpetrated by a deranged serial killer?

So if soldiers select another word for killing -destroy/annihilate/dispatch/eradicate/erase/neutralize/obliterate/slay/waste/wipe out/zap - it has more to do with differentiating the act of killing which they get involved on with that of criminal murderers than mask their own actions. Of course much of the motivation behind the replacement words chosen for killing has no subliminal psychological basis at all.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like an ideal response at all. I mean, ideal for whom? The soldier, who is likely to either get himself killed out on the battlefield because he's distracted by all that sadness and respect, or have serious issues back home when the weight of all that sadness and respect comes down on him? The nation employing the soldier, who has to deal with a bunch more dead and damaged soldiers? Seems like the only party for whom that would be an ideal response is the guys the soldier is shooting at.

I get that what's supposed to happen is that the soldier's trigger finger will be more discerning if he empathizes with everyone he shoots at, but emotion as a mechanism for shoot/don't shoot differentiation seems like a terrible idea from the ground up.

[JMA]

Yeah, that doesn't seem like an ideal response at all. I mean, ideal for whom? The soldier, who is likely to either get himself killed out on the battlefield because he's distracted by all that sadness and respect, or have serious issues back home when the weight of all that sadness and respect comes down on him? The nation employing the soldier, who has to deal with a bunch more dead and damaged soldiers? Seems like the only party for whom that would be an ideal response is the guys the soldier is shooting at.

I get that what's supposed to happen is that the soldier's trigger finger will be more discerning if he empathizes with everyone he shoots at, but emotion as a mechanism for shoot/don't shoot differentiation seems like a terrible idea from the ground up.

There is a problem here which may have infected the US military (and maybe other militaries as well).

I note with horror that US junior officers themselves (as opposed reading lists imposed on them) list 'On Killing, by Dave Grossman' as number 7 on their own reading list. ( What do Army junior officers actually recommend reading?: Their own top 10 )

Someone needs to carry out some serious damage control right now as these young officers heads are being filled with nonsense.

I would like to learn more about Marlantes and his post Vietnam descent into a world of 'sex, drugs and rock and roll'. There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers (probably millions) over time - say since the Great War - who experienced more violent combat than him who did not fall apart.

Grossman and the like tell soldiers that they will suffer remorse (or worse) after having killed. (He does accept that for some/many/whatever this post killing phase may be fleeting - so fleeting that I must have missed it)

So if you don't have nightmares/have visions of the person you killed/suffer from depression/seek solace in drink and drugs/ etc etc then maybe you have a more serious problem.

This crap has to stop.

Surely there are enough US servicemen who have experienced combat and have not entered a self destructive spiral who can report that they did their duty and are still A-OK? Why is it always those who have issues who get interviewed and have their experiences included in case studies?

I contend that for the vast majority of soldiers the combat experience makes them stronger people.

It is also fair to say that at the war's end the infantry soldier who played his full part emerged strengthened and enlivened by the experience of battle. Above all, he knew the true meaning and true value of comradeship. Fostered by unity of purpose, the team spirit of the New Zealand battalions was a force of great power, rarely encountered in other walks of life. The sense of comradeship and mutual reliance was new in degree to those who found themselves in the team, and in itself was enough to submerge much of the uncertainty and unpleasantness of war. – New Zealand Infantry In Battle In World War II

[ganulv]

Why is it always those who have issues who get interviewed and have their experiences included in case studies?

You’re not the first person to have asked some form of that question.

[carl]

JMA & Motorfirebox: When Marlantes made his statement:

"The ideal response to killing in war should be one similar to a mercy killing, sadness mingled with respect."

Didn't that refer to how he felt the thing as a whole should be viewed decades, maybe many decades later? I don't have a copy to refer to (the library copy isn't back yet) so I may have the context wrong but what I remember is something more along the lines of being proud of professional accomplishment but a bit sad that the accomplishment involved killing a lot of people, NVA soldiers, who may not have had much choice about being there. Again I remember him saying that after decades of reflection, this is how he felt he should best view it.

That he came to that after so much time implies that Marlantes, the old man came to the conclusion that that is how old men should best view it. But what worked good for Marlantes long after the fighting stopped. For others who knows?

That viewpoint would not be so workable for soldiers during and in the immediate aftermath of fight I imagine. I read once of a B-26 crew that caught a Chinese unit in the open in the daylight and killed over 1,000, that one crew. Feeling anything but pride and happiness that those dead Chinese weren't around to kill G.I.s would have been a handicap to future missions.

I am not sure his descent into sex, drugs and rock and roll isn't anything more than a young man leaving a highly regimented world and entering the US of the late 60s and 70s (I forgot if he partied in Europe too). Sex, drugs and rock and roll was a way of life easily engaged in by a lot of people in those days. Maybe it had something to do with his combat experience but maybe it had just as much to do with being a young man in a place where it was easy.

I always thought Grossman was dead wrong too. He always talked about humans instead of culture and I never remembered reading anything about the Mongols being troubled by angst. The comments section in the Best Defense junior officer preferred reads list cited by JMA tore Grossman apart.

Not all of the writing is about guys who have problems. Most maybe because problems are inherently more dramatic than people who are well adjusted. But not all. Bob Greene wrote a very good book called "Duty" (I think). It was about his father and also about Paul Tibbets whom Greene got to know very well. IIRC Tibbets had no guilt, was proud of his unit and its accomplishment and knew that dropping the bomb ended the war sooner thereby saving many.